The market · Grains and flours · Southeast Asia, South Asia, East Asia
Rice flour
Finely milled rice. It makes crisp batters (bánh xèo), soft noodles and chewy sweets, and dusts dough for baking.
clean · crisp when fried
What to do with it
Classics built on it
MinangkabauSala lauakCrisp little balls of rice flour dough, yellow with turmeric and full of small salted fish and chilli, deep-fried.No one here has made it yetVietnameseBánh xèoA thin, crisp pancake of rice flour, coconut milk and turmeric, folded round pork, prawns and bean sprouts, wrapped in leaves and herbs and dipped in nước chấm.No one here has made it yetMalaysianCendolGreen strands of pandan rice-flour jelly in coconut milk and gula melaka syrup, over shaved ice, often with red beans.No one here has made it yetTeochewFried carrot cakeSteamed white radish and rice-flour cake, cut into cubes and fried with egg, garlic and preserved radish — 'white', or 'black' with sweet soy.No one here has made it yetPunjabiAmritsari fishWhite fish in a gram-flour batter sharp with ajwain, chilli and lemon, deep-fried crisp and eaten hot with chaat masala and chutney.No one here has made it yetSri LankanHoppersBowl-shaped pancakes of fermented rice flour and coconut milk, crisp and lacy at the edge and soft at the base, often with an egg cooked inside.No one here has made it yetSri LankanString hoppersFine threads of rice-flour dough pressed into small nests and steamed, eaten with a thin coconut gravy and pol sambol.No one here has made it yet Kinds
- Rice flour
- From ordinary rice — for crisp batters and noodles.
- Glutinous rice flour
- From sticky rice — for chewy mochi and tang yuan. Not a swap.
Knowing it
- Where to buy
- Southeast Asian grocers; check the packet for which rice it's from.
- Worth knowing
- For crisp pancakes, let the batter rest an hour and use it thin.